Captured by the Navajos eBook

“I fear not. She ought to have a woman’s
gentle care, for one thing, and some remedies and
appliances I haven’t with me for such a delicate
case. It is the long distance between here and
the fort, and the rough road, that make the outlook
hopeless. She cannot survive such a journey.”

“Then we will remain here, doctor,” said
I. “Write out a list of what you want,
and I will send a man to Whipple for tents and supplies,
a camp woman, Frank, Vic, and the elder Arnold girl.”

“Duncan, you are inspired!” exclaimed
the doctor. “I’ll have my order ready
by the time the messenger reports, and then we’ll
make Brenda comfortable.”

A letter was written to Captain Bayard, the surgeon’s
memoranda enclosed, and a quarter of an hour afterwards
fleet-footed Sancho was flying over the sixty miles
to Fort Whipple as fast as Private Tom Clary could
ride him. Three days later a pack-train arrived,
with a laundress from the infantry company, Frank
Burton, and Mary Arnold, and with stores and supplies
necessary for setting up a sick-camp. The wounded
girl mended rapidly from the start.

In due time Brenda recovered sufficiently to bear
transportation to Prescott, where she joined her uncle
and cousins. Rapid changes quickly followed.
I received orders directing me to report for duty at
once at the Seabury Military School, and by the same
mail came letters from Colonel Burton directing his
sons to accompany me. At the end of the next
fortnight, just as we were packed for a journey to
the Pacific coast, Brenda received instructions from
her maternal relatives to make the same journey, and
joined us.

Frank and Henry’s project to transport their
ponies East, and their plans for Manuel and Sapoya,
were also carried out. Boys and ponies became
a prominent contingent to the corps of cadets under
my military instruction during the following three
years.

Later, Henry went to West Point and became an officer
of the army. Frank and Manuel went to college,
the former becoming a distinguished civil engineer
and the latter a prominent business man. Sapoya
closed his school career at Seabury, and rejoined
his people in the Indian Territory, becoming a valued
and respected leader of his people.

On a beautiful lawn before a fine mansion on the eastern
shore of the Hudson River, beneath the shade of a
stately elm, stands a small monument, upon the top
of which rests a finely chiselled model of a setter
dog. Beneath, on a bronze tablet, is engraved: